Like most things in my life, my reading journey proceeds in a convoluted and undirected fashion. The reading cut ends up being about 75% romance, 25% everything else.
Almost all of the books will have been supplied by the publisher in return for an honest review.

Saturday, January 28, 2017

The Art of Vinyasa by Richard Freeman; Mary Taylor

I would definitely skip over the "teaching" sections of this book and go straight to the "practice" sections. Because, whoa, I'm not sure who this book is aimed at but I definitely wouldn't steer newbies this way. Within the first 40 pages, there were what seemed like a dozen deep thoughts that were skimmed over. This is definitely for a more intermediate yoga practitioner.I always feel bad for leaving a low rating on a book, especially when you can tell that an author has tried really hard to get everything just right.And that's the problem with what I'm calling the "teaching" sections, where Mr. Freeman is giving details on history or expounding on ideas, he is trying to get everything so perfect that you don't get a sense of his own voice. The yoga books that I resonate most deeply with are the ones where the teacher's own sense of style comes through and you can get a sense of their personality. Most of this book, especially in the beginning, were just myriad facts thrown at you in rapid succession. There is not a real sense of flow and there is a striving for perfection that makes me think of the yoga classes that make you tense up and send your thoughts into monkey-mode trying to get every molecule into perfect alignment rather than the classes that just let you relax into the moment and enjoy your practice.And this was part of the big bummer for me because I actually really enjoyed the more practice-based sections of this book when we got to experience some of Mr. Freeman's teachings. Two and a half starsThis book came out December 27